badmigraine

Oh how naive...you mean you guys don't know about that over-sixty male cross-dressing onsen fetish club? Good heavens. It's almost like you really believe they're women.

Just got the Sony DVD201, about 100,000 yen at BIC Camera. It's my first videocam, so I can't compare it to the other types, but it sure is amazing. The DVDs are the smaller size but play in my home DVD player and computer DVD-ROM, no problem. They even have little chapter menus like when you rent a DVD such as Star Wars Episode One. The Sony digital editing software app that ships with it is pretty poorly designed and barely rates as bad. You'd want to have iMovie or Roxio Toast on a Mac, or one of the big DVD editing/burning suites like Roxio Media Creator 7 or Nero on a PC.

Used to be only the Communist bloc athletes were "pros". It was their job. They probably got paid in steroids and livestock growth hormones. I remember more than one female East German swimmer who looked more like an unshaven professional linebacker than a woman in a bathing suit. I read an article a couple years back. A number of the former East German track and field, swimming, weightlifting and other athletes were claiming some kind of compensation or trying to make a lawsuit for the damage done to their bodies in service of the state. Infertility, cancer, birth defects, etc.

Plucks is right, Kamo! I'm in Japan and haven't seen the US coverage this time at all Just exaggerating while drinking either too much coffee or too little beer.

You're right, Plucks. The team play thing can be great to watch when it's done well. The greatest athlete I saw during my recent 2 years in Walled Lake, MI was Scott the Mountain Biker. He is a graphic designer by day but a mountain bike enthusiast in the evenings and on weekends. With a workshop in his basement, a few credit cards and studded tires for racing down icy ski slopes, he is a true enthusiast. Now add in that he'd win almost every race by a comfortable margin and you've got a minor hero. Then you notice he wears the same Star Trek shirt for every race (Captain Kirk s

Quote: I love the Olympics. Winter more than Summer though. The CBC in Canada does almost 24 hour coverage. Right on, Toque! CBC coverage rocks. I used to live in Michigan, where we could pull in broadcasts from Windsor, Ontario no problem. During the 1976 Olympics in Montreal I think we hardly left the TV except to sleep. You got to see everything...qualifying rounds of pentathlons, up-and-coming flyweight boxers, vicious fencing finals between world beaters who are mostly unknown...sometimes it seemed CBC would just point the camera at a venue and let it run...almost as good as being t

I love to see the vaunted US teams get drubbed. Particularly satisfying is seeing a host of small country teams whip the arrogant, childish grown NHL men of US ice hockey, and seeing the showboating "Dream Team" of NBA stars revealed as the self-centered, issue-laden prima donnas that they really are. There is something very dull and hollow about watching these guys flail around outside of their chosen run. Pro sports in the US is in a sorry state indeed. Every cheap, vulgar and irritatingly teenage aspect of sports has been blown out of proportion until it is all there is. Everyone has

It was trashed over on the Teton Gravity Research forums. Don't go there and read about it, because they spoil the surprise ending for you, within the first line or two of the first post. I'll probably end up renting the DVD about 8 months from now, and eating two bags of lowfat microwave popcorn while watching it. Sounds like an OK movie for me then.

Short answer: it's not ready yet. Wait a year or two. Longer answer: Mogs and I have the Vodafone global standard phones (V801SA, by Sanyo) and they suck for the following reasons: --handset was very expensive (maybe you could get one for cheap now, but read on). --handset is giant, clunky and heavy. It sucks. --everyone I know who's had one has returned it at least once for service. I've returned mine 3 times for service. Everything from freezes and crashes (like a bad computer) to very hot battery that runs out in less than 1 hr. Mine actually changed its own clock time,

Yeah, mee too. I never owned one but used to dream about the Gateway Handbook... Gotta love those Computer Museum sites. There's been some really odd stuff over the years that's quickly forgotten...but when you see it again you go "Oh yeah...THAT thing..." and suddenly feel rather old. I remember cruising the Net on Compuserve with a 14k dialup modem, and thinking it was hot stuff. I remember my brother writing his papers on a Commodore64, and showing me the word processing key commands and the silly games it had. Still not a bad hobby platform for video I hear. Sort o

Go to "forum home", then click on the forum called "SnowJapan.Com NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & UPDATES". The information is in there.

The badmigraine take on mp3 players, including the iPod: A lot of people have no interest in portable music. Gadgets and gewgaws are nice and I like toys as well as the next man, but I would never use one of these devices. I just never have occasion to listen to music that I already own over tiny ear bud phones while walking around noisy streets, riding trains, working out, or sitting in waiting rooms. If I have idle time, I read a book. No book? I send obscene and juvenile cell phone messages to Mogski and my crew in Walled Lake, MI. In my Stuff drawer, lying dusty and unused,

Amazing, and to think that he's sure to be a snowboarder grommet after just one trip to the mountain with Uncle Badmigs! I can hear it now. "Daddy, I want a new Salomon board and Flow bindings just like Unca Badmigs!"

I wonder what these desserts think about us?

I don't mind eels, but I prefer oes.

Yeah, what a surprise. The guy interviewed on this "fair and balanced" Fox page is a "national security expert" at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think-tank favored by Reagan and one of the major designers of the Bush administration's "plan" for "regime change" in Iraq...they also assert the US involvement in Iraq has nothing to do with oil. This is a wonderful thing for them to say, considering that Lee Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil is the vice-chair of their board of trustees. OTHER ILLUSTRIOUS IMPARTIAL MEMBERS INCLUDE: --US VP Dick Cheney's wife Lynn Cheney as a s

Yeah, the word "ambition" has a bad rap. It sounds like it only means what a jr. mgmt. trainee in his first cheap suit feels when he drinks his morning coffee and thinks "I'm going to kick a** at the next meeting and really impress the boss and get that promotion!!" I've got ambition, but not in that direction. I've also got a wife and unborn baby in the hospital and I haven't the option to Chill Out and find myself. I won't be able to do that anymore until I become independently wealthy, or run out on my family and be a deadbeat dad. I'd love a job that matches my lifesty

There's plenty of work at my company today Scoobs! Anyone else have the pleasure of working at a company where national holidays mean nothing? When I think back, I've never had a job where national holidays meant anything. IN UNIVERSITY DAYS Bartender and sperm bank donor. The former was busiest on holidays, the latter knew no rest. POST-UNI JOB Cashier at a record shop. We sold most records on weekends and holidays. I was always working on July 4 or Xmas day or what have you. Terrible. FIRST LAWYER JOB AND EVERY OTHER SINCE THEN Holidays? Forget it. In fact, fo

Sadly, they pawned all their guns for booze money!

Another ad that drove me crazy was the one apparently telling people to get out and vote in the elections. The scene as I remember it opens with the bleachers full of Japanese people cheering on a sports event and waving flags. Then, a dramatic cut to a serious angry righteous man in a casual suit with open-necked shirt who yells out in didactic anger, "HEY JAPAN. IS IT JUST SPORTS FOR YOU THEN?!" and then he righteously guilts them into voting in his Big-Man angry voice. The counterpoint to his macho tirade is The Cute Young Woman who is quietly appreciative and apparently some

Another nice cheapo player is "furin" wind chimes. Those little glass ones shaped like fish or piglets. My local 100-yen shop has a great selection, and they even come wrapped in a protective box cushioned with paper...this is one of the few non-edible gifts where a year later I still saw it in use hanging outside the kitchen window or on the back step. Another good one is a six-pack of those tiny cans of Asahi beer...they're about the size of 2-3 shot glasses. Not only does the recipient find them a cute conversation piece, but they are also perfect for when somebody demands that you sho

grungy-g, I agree. The equipment I was born with, though neither spectacularly large or low, just hangs out the leg chute of most boxers. I have to buy the long, mid-thigh version. The other day I went to Muji to see if I could pick up some underwear. Though my waist puts me into their M or possibly L size, when I looked at the things, even the LL (biggest size they have) look like the skimpy short undies I had at age 11 before things kind of enlarged and began flopping around more. There's just no way I could use those Muji panties. My entire set of reproductive weaponry would be out and

Just took it and the results sound like they belong to a different person. "Precise and meticulous, this person is a stickler for detail." Actually, what trips me up most is lack of attention to detail and letting things slide...one detail I did notice though was a spelling error in the fake letter from HR to the line manager. This whole thing of grooming oneself so that They will give you a Good Job makes me nauseous. I know it's a reality of today's world, and a far cry from feudal servitude, but it makes me feel ill nonetheless. Who are these faceless judges that I must impress, and wh

I think I just found my new look...should be easy enough to get the threads. Then all I need is windswept northern shores bathed in weak sunlight, and jagged hulks of rock poking through turf and shale. Oslo Sweater Shop All joking aside, I'd love to be the tele guy swooping down a double-black diamond run in a stylie Nordic sweater! Skol!

When I was a boy, my daddy told me... My daddy told me many things. He said, Son, there's a lot of things In this world that you're gonna have no use for. And when you're feeling blue, And you've lost all your dreams, There's nothing like a campfire And a can of beans.